Jon Jenkins joined the Kepler team in 1995 shortly after hearing Bill Borucki give a talk about Kepler. He is Analysis Lead (Co-Investigator) for the mission and has developed the science algorithms used to process the raw pixel data from the spacecraft to produce time series of brightness measurements of the 150,000 target stars over time and to search for the repetitive, miniscule signatures of planets orbiting and transiting these stars. He developed science-processing pipelines for the Vulcan Project, a ground-based effort to detect giant transiting planets run at Lick Observatory, and for the Kepler Technology Demonstration, a hardware-based simulation of the Kepler photometer. Jon also designed the data compression algorithm used by Kepler’s flight computer to reduce the data volume so that 60+ days of data can be stored on board the spacecraft’s solid-state recorder. He is the lead scientific programmer in the Science Operations Center and oversees the implementation of the science pipeline and reviews the quality of the science products.

Carl Sagan was already a legend when I joined the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (DPS/AAS) as an undergraduate student. I’d had a life long interest in space science and the solar system long before I knew who Carl was. Even at the beginning, however, Carl was inspiring me. In elementary school I had my appendix taken out. One of my visitors was my scoutmaster, an engineer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He brought me brochures and materials about the Viking orbiter and landers. Contemplating these robots exploring Earth’s red neighbor far away took my mind from the discomfort of the surgery. Carl Sagan, was of course, one of the principal talents behind Viking, though I didn’t know it at the time. Later I was mesmerized by the Cosmos television series. In college I stumbled upon a professor of electrical engineering who conducted studies of the electromagnetic properties of various gases to help interpret radio astronomical observations. The professor needed assistance in his laboratory and I was only too glad to help him out. I recall seeing Carl at another table at breakfast at that first DPS meeting. It was thrilling to be a member of the same professional society that he helped found, and almost too much to find myself sharing an elevator with him later that week.

After college I found my way to the SETI Institute near NASA Ames Research Center where I continued my work to study the atmosphere of Venus with Pioneer Venus and Magellan orbiters. I gave a paper on the ancient ocean of Venus at the first Circumstellar Habitable Zones (CHZ) conference at Ames Research Center and had the luck to be introduced by Carl Sagan himself. He took a lively interest in all the papers that were presented. After he left the room, one of the other speakers noticed that Carl had left a half eaten Twinkie on his chair. She scooped it up exclaiming that she would put it in her freezer and keep it forever!

A few years later I saw Carl at another DPS/AAS meeting. He was gaunt and rested often. He stood up as I passed with a colleague who had organized the CHZ conference, and his eyes sparkled. He shook my hand with a warm, firm grip and asked how my work on the Venus atmosphere was going. I couldn’t believe he remembered either me or my research.

The most amazing thing I can say about Carl was that he was the same in person as he was in print or on screen. Reading his books it always seemed that he was speaking directly to me and was as passionate about humanity as he was about the cosmos. He had an immense intellect and a profound humanity to match. We are fortunate that every so often a hero like Carl walks the Earth and not only leaves it better than when he arrived but also inspires others to do their part, too.

Today I work on the Kepler Mission to develop the algorithms for the science pipeline. I can only imagine how happy Carl would be to see how this historic mission is taking shape since he last saw it well before we were even selected for flight.